The development of the supercapacitor (ie., a capacitor of greater than 200 Farads) has resulted in the use of capacitors as stores of electric energy for starting automotive engines. A fairly early example is U.S. Pat. No. 5,146,095, issued to Tsuchiya et al. Here a supercapacitor is charged up as the automobile driver turns his key to start his vehicle. Then the charge on the supercapacitor is used to start the automobile engine. This procedure avoids the strong current draw from the battery that is otherwise necessary every time an automobile is started.
One disadvantage of this mechanism, however, is that the vehicle user must wait for the supercapacitor to be charged up every time he starts his automobile. Also, there is a possibility that the engine will not start, given the amount of energy stored in the capacitor. Furthermore, it appears that if the capacitor were broken and unable to accept a full charge, that the vehicle operator would be left with a nonfunctional vehicle.
Although a number of other references exist detailing the use of a supercapacitor in starting an internal combustion engine, none of these references detail a system that both avoids an intense current draw from the battery at first starting up an engine and that almost never requires the automobile user to wait when first starting his automobile.